Pathogen
by Ayla Pascal
Summary: A pandemic ravages the British Isles. The ARC team responds.


**Author Notes**: Thank you so much to my beta lukadreaming for betaing and Brit-picking this! Thank you to rodlox for betaing as well! Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own. This fic owes its ideas partially from the movie _Outbreak_ and from the book _The Hades Factor_ by Robert Ludlum.

**Pathogen**

Terry stared at his watch nervously. It was his tenth job interview in a month and so far, five companies had already rejected him. He was beginning to think that his parents might have been right when they insisted that he shouldn't have studied anthropology. It was an interesting subject but so far, nobody seemed interested in hiring him. They were all interested in hiring the lawyers, the doctors and the accountants.

Absentmindedly, he scratched his wrist. Looking down, he could see a small red rash that seemed to spread out from underneath his watch band. With a sigh, he undid his watch and shoved it into his pocket. It was a birthday present from his grandmother who always seemed to forget that he was allergic to nickel. He should have double-checked that it was nickel-free, but he'd forgotten this time. Terry suspected that his wrist was going to be covered in welts by the end of the day.

Just great.

He resisted the urge to tap his foot impatiently on the floor. It was already after two in the afternoon and his appointment had been at 1:30 pm. Where were they? For what seemed to be the hundredth time in the last half an hour, he glanced up at the blonde receptionist who seemed to be currently engrossed in filing her nails. She was probably paid more than him right now. In fact, if this interview didn't go well, she would probably continue to be paid more than him given that he'd be unemployed.

"Mr Renton?"

Terry jerked his head up and put on his best smile, which unfortunately, his last girlfriend had told him made him look a little slow, but he reckoned it was better than not smiling. A severe-looking woman dressed in a business suit that closely resembled a nun's habit looked down at him. "Yes, that's me," Terry said hurriedly. He stood up, brushed his suit down and held out his hand.

The woman shook it firmly. "Please, come with me," she told him crisply. "I'm Mr Johnson's secretary, Beatrice. He's currently waiting for you."

"Excellent," Terry said. He then swallowed nervously. "I mean, it's good to meet you."

She gave him a faint smile as he followed her towards the lift. "Please, Mr Renton, there's no need to be so nervous."

When she turned around to push the lift button, Terry took the opportunity to surreptitiously loosen his tie. He was beginning to feel a little hot around the collar. In fact, he almost panicked as he realised that he was sweating slightly. Now that wasn't going to make a good impression. His palms were also rather damp so he wiped them on his trousers. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?" he said, his voice sounding rather strained.

Beatrice nodded curtly. "More sunshine than we've had for a while." She gave a smile that made her seem almost human. "My plants will like it."

Terry racked his brain. He knew next to nothing about plants. Invariably, he always seemed to be scratched by thorns, or like what happened last week, he was bitten by an insect that was on the flower. "That's nice," he managed to say. Was the air-conditioning in the building working properly, or was it always so warm in here? He felt like he was on the verge of hyperventilating. Rationally, Terry knew that he was just extremely nervous but the mixture of job interview nerves and claustrophobia didn't help.

The lift pinged and the doors opened. "We're here," Beatrice told him. "Come this way."

Terry couldn't help looking around him with awe. The building was one of those ultra-modern ones from the outside, but it was obvious that Mr Johnson enjoyed an older style of decoration. His surroundings reminded him of one of those old libraries, all plush carpets and mahogany.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Beatrice told him. "Follow me. Mr Johnson's office is down this corridor."

Terry looked at the paintings lining the walls of the corridor. Not for the first time, he wished that he knew more about art. His father had always told him that the key to gaining a job was to gain rapport with the staff. Not just the interviewer, but the other staff as well. Terry suspected that if he was more learned, he would be chatting comfortably to Beatrice right now rather than just silently following her down the soft carpeting.

Beatrice stopped by a large wooden, engraved door. She knocked sharply on it twice. "Mr Johnson?" she called out. "Mr Renton is here for his interview."

Terry took a deep breath and tried his best to stand up straight. He wished that he would stop sweating but that couldn't be helped. He clutched his folder tightly in his fingers.

Beatrice frowned. "Mr Johnson?" she called, pushing open the door slightly. She gasped.

"What's wrong?" Terry asked immediately. He tried to step past Beatrice to look into the room but she seemed to have frozen. He hoped that Mr Johnson wasn't in some sort of compromising situation. With his luck, he would have managed to walk in on his future boss in flagrante delicto with another secretary. "Is there anything the matter? Should we dial 999?"

"I... I think..." Beatrice stammered and then licked her lips. "I think so," she said, still clutching the door handle.

Terry gently removed her fingers from the handle. He then pushed the door open all the way. At first, his eyes didn't seem to register the room. It seemed so improbable. He had expected that the guy would be lying on the floor, clutching his heart or something. From what he had read, Mr Johnson was rather old. It seemed likely that he would be a prime candidate for a heart attack. However, as he looked around, it looked more like a wild animal had rampaged about the room. Files were strewn everywhere and some even had what seemed like teeth marks.

That wasn't even the most horrifying part. An old man, Terry presumed he was Mr Johnson, was lying on the floor in a puddle of something that smelled distinctly like vomit. There were scratch marks down his neck, almost as if he had tried to claw his own throat out. His face was blotchy, a mix of red and black; it was obvious that Mr Johnson was dead. A whiff of something else wafted over and Terry put his hand over his mouth and nose.

Bile rose in his throat and he tried not to throw up. The entire scene was sickening, like something out of a horror movie.

He turned around and could see Beatrice punching numbers into her mobile phone. "Come quick," she gasped. "He's dead. Oh my god, he's dead and there's blood everywhere."

Terry couldn't agree more. He took rapid steps backwards until he was out in the corridor. He inhaled deeply and leaned against the wall. What the hell was that? What the hell had gone on in Mr Johnson's office? Suddenly, Terry wasn't sure he wanted a job at this company any more. In fact, there was nothing he wanted more than to be as far away from this place as possible.

"The police and ambulance are coming," Beatrice said rapidly.

"Oh good," Terry said faintly.

* * *

"What the hell?" Detective Inspector Barry Bishop said as he stepped outside the building. Looking around, he could see several of his men dry heaving. The scene upstairs was like nothing he had ever seen. He felt sorry for the secretary and the poor sod who'd come in for a job interview. They were both normal folk who should have gone their entire lives without seeing something like that.

"Guv?"

Bishop focused his eyes and looked down at the young constable standing in front of him. "We've cordoned off the crime scene and the building's been evacuated," he told the constable, trying to sound encouraging.

"Sir?" the constable looked hesitant. "What did that to the guy?"

Bishop shook his head. "I don't know, son. But the Department of Health folk will be here soon. They're the guys to deal with this kind of stuff." He gave the PC a reassuring pat on the back. "They'll have to check us over, but we'll be fine."

"I hope so," the constable said. "I'm supposed to be on a date with Mary tonight."

Bishop hid a smile. "Finally ready to give her the ring, eh?"

The constable blushed. "I think so," he said slowly. "Anyway, the two who discovered the body are over there in that ambulance." He pointed and Bishop could see several paramedics wearing face masks.

As Bishop walked over, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his own face mask. Since the recent terrorist attacks, all police officers in Britain had been mandated to carry face masks. The masks weren't 100% effective, but they were designed to filter out most air-borne viruses. He was thankful that he had ordered the first of his men who had gone up to put on their masks first. There was a chance that the two were mistaken, but it was better to be safe than sorry. By the time the police and paramedics had arrived up to the seventeenth floor, the two had seemed almost hysterical. They had babbled about blood and vomit, which had been enough for Bishop to be on alert. It could have been something as simple as a shooting, but as soon as the first officers walked in, they came right back out again. Their report had prompted Bishop to ring the DH immediately.

As he came closer, he noted that the two seemed to have calmed down slightly, although that was likely due to the sedatives given to them earlier.

"What the hell happened up there?"

Bishop consulted his notes. "Mr Terry Renton, isn't it?" The man nodded. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say. You and Mrs Turpin will have to be quarantined, though."

Renton's eyes widened. "Quarantined?" he repeated.

"I'm afraid so. The authorities will give you more information when they arrive."

Renton blinked rapidly. "So ... that .... what happened upstairs to Mr Johnson... it's some sort of biological agent? Are we going to die?" There was a hysterical note in his voice.

"You'll be fine," Bishop said firmly. He crossed his fingers mentally and hoped that he was right. The kid in front of him looked barely into his twenties. From the history that was given to him, the kid was here for a job interview. What bad luck.

Renton looked disbelieving.

* * *

"Well, that was boring," Danny commented as he jumped into the SUV.

Abby had to agree. They had come to the anomaly and for once, nothing had come out of it. She and Danny had scanned the immediate environment, while Connor locked the anomaly. About 20 minutes later, the anomaly vanished. "Maybe we should have gone to the other one," she joked. "Becker and Sarah are probably having the time of their lives there."

A few hours previously, two anomalies had almost simultaneously blinked up on Connor's device and Lester had divided up their team. Their anomaly was closer, whereas she suspected that Becker and Sarah would only be just arriving at theirs. Ever since Connor had souped up his detector they had been tracking anomalies all over England.

Connor reached over and turned on the radio. He then propped his legs up on the dashboard. "Let's go over and check it out," he suggested.

Danny nodded as he started the car up. As he was pulling away from the warehouse, Abby's radio crackled. She picked it up. "Abby here."

Sarah's voice came over the radio loud and clear. "We have a situation here. There are people from the National Health Service, Health Protection Agency, Department of Health, and a bunch of other acronyms crawling around everywhere."

Abby blinked. "Have you been able to get to the anomaly?"

"Negative," Sarah replied. "It isn't active any more. It blinked out of existence when we were halfway here, actually." There was a scuffling noise. "We're being told to move the vehicle. Tell Lester that there are uniforms everywhere. Apparently we don't have the right clearance or something. Becker seems pissed off..."

There was a crackling sound. "Hello?" Abby tried. "Hello?" But the radio was silent.

"HPA and NHS?" Connor repeated. "That can't be good."

There was a slight jerk as Danny stepped on the accelerator. "Well, then," he said cheerfully, "we'd better get there faster. Much faster. Abby? Call Lester."

"Already doing that," Abby told him as she hit speed-dial on her mobile.

* * *

DI Bishop felt relieved as he turned the doorknob. After a horrible day, he was finally home. "Sweetheart," he said as Clarissa ran up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He inhaled deeply as he cuddled her; she smelled like lemons and their pet cat. "Where's mummy?" he said as he put her down.

Clarissa pouted. "Mummy had to work late," she said, grabbing his hand with her small sticky one.

"Did she say when she would be back," Bishop asked as he bent over and pressed a kiss on her head. "You're getting big, darling. Soon you'll be too big for daddy to pick up."

"Nope," Clarissa said, dragging him towards the kitchen. She giggled. "And you say that every day."

Bishop sniffed as he entered the kitchen. It seemed that they'd forgotten to put away last night's dinner again. With a sigh, he extracted his hand away from Clarissa and picked up the plate from the kitchen table. The smell of Indian made him wrinkle his nose. He hated the smell of leftovers. He coughed as he scraped the remainder of the food into the bin.

"Daddy?"

"In a minute, sweetheart," Bishop said as he walked over to the sink to rinse off the plate.

"Daddy!"

Bishop looked over. Clarissa's eyes were wide. "What's wrong?"

Clarissa lifted a small chubby hand to point to the corner of her mouth. "You have red stuff here."

Bishop automatically licked the corner of his mouth. He tasted metal. Lifting his hand slowly, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It came back red. His throat was ticklish again and as he coughed, he could see splatters of blood land on his hand. "Fuck," he muttered.

"Daddy!" Clarissa admonished. "That's a dirty word."

"Sweetheart," Bishop said firmly, trying his best to keep his voice calm. "I want you to go to your room and shut the door."

"But..."

"No buts," Bishop snapped.

Clarissa's lip trembled.

"Go to your room," he ordered.

She hiccupped and a tear ran down her fact, but she complied.

Bishop watched her run off. He wished he could hug her but as he looked down fearfully at the blood staining his hand, he knew he shouldn't. He was suddenly very glad his wife was working late.

He was about to reach into his pocket with his other hand to extract his mobile when a sudden stomach pain stabbed him. It felt as though knives were cutting through him from the inside out. It felt even worse than the time he and Katherine had gone to Thailand on their honeymoon and he had ended up on the toilet for practically the entire week.

He clutched his stomach as he stumbled off towards the toilet. It felt almost like he wanted to throw up and have diarrhoea at the same time. He'd had that feeling before, but only when he'd had too much to drink. For him, it usually came out one end or the other, not both. Bile rose up in his throat as he grabbed at the edge of the toilet seat. The first wave of nausea hit him strongly as he emptied his stomach. His eyes watered and he longed to wipe them but he didn't seem to be able to move his fingers.

Bishop tried to breathe but his breath seemed to be coming in shallow gasps. With effort, he wrenched his fingers away from the edge of the toilet bowl. It felt as though his throat was closing, as if a noose was closing around his neck and tightening. He wheezed as he clawed at his neck but it didn't seem to help. The world was going black around him and it was with remarkable clarity that Bishop realised that he was going to pass out.

His second last thought before he blacked out was that this was remarkably similar to the scene that he had just seen this afternoon. His last thought was for Katherine and Clarissa: he prayed that they wouldn't have to go through this.

* * *

"Holy shit!" Connor exclaimed as they arrived in Nottingham several hours later. They drew up next to Becker and Sarah. "This looks bad."

Abby had to agree. From where she was sitting in the back of the SUV, she could see sirens everywhere, the flashing blue causing eerie shadows on the reflected glass from the buildings. It seemed as though every law enforcement official in the surrounding 30 miles had congregated here. Although, as she looked more closely, there were very few local police. In fact, many of the men and women outside were dressed in suits and carrying very thick folders. In the middle of all of that, there were also men and women in blue isolation suits, which made her blood run cold. Just what on earth had happened?

"Holy shit is right," Danny agreed.

"You don't think..." Connor began and then trailed off.

"Hmm?" Abby asked.

He turned around in the seat. In the half-light of the setting sun, his eyes were shadowed. "You don't think this," he waved his hands around to encompass the entire scene, "was caused by the anomaly?"

Abby opened her mouth to say, of course not, but it didn't seem to come out. Instead, she said, "I don't know. I hope not."

"Don't we all?" Danny said dryly. "If it was, then I don't think even I can fix this."

Abby reached forward and punched him in the arm. "This isn't a joking matter," she scolded. "Come on, I can see the others standing over there waiting for us." She reached over and pushed open her car door. As she stepped outside, she stretched her legs and breathed in deeply. There was always something a little bit cramped about being in a car for a couple of hours.

Sarah waved her over. "There's been an outbreak of _something_," she said in a low voice as they drew close. "Everybody's being very tight-lipped."

"Lester said he'd try to get us the clearance," Abby said. She couldn't help but turn her head to stare at an army officer walking by, talking rapidly and softly into his earpiece. She looked at Becker. "How about you? Can you get in?"

He shook his head. "I've already tried."

"Damn," Abby said. "We need to know if this is ... well... you know."

Sarah nodded, her lips folded tightly together. "I think it is," she said quietly. "Or at least, it's something else very serious. Have you seen how frightened the people who have got past the cordon look?"

Abby had noticed exactly that. "Maybe we should have stayed in London," she said. "We can't do anything here."

"We could try to get in," Danny said slowly.

She whirled around and glared at him.

"Taking the appropriate precautions, of course," he added, holding his hands up. "I'm not suicidal, whatever you might think. As you said, we need to know if this situation needs our expertise or if we should go home like good little puppies in order to watch this on the BBC like everybody else."

Abby snorted. "Well," she said slowly, "with the appropriate precautions..." It was just then that Danny's phone rang. She watched as he picked it up, listened and then frowned.

"Well, gang," Danny said as he hung up. "I guess it's back to London we go. Lester's orders."

* * *

The last person Abby expected to come strolling back into the ARC was Jenny. She looked like her normal perfectly-groomed self, a far cry from the last time Abby had seen her. It looked like the break from the ARC had done her a world of good. She also didn't expect Jenny to march up to them and hand out nametags and passes as if she was a primary school teacher and they were sweets.

"James has been kind enough to procure these for you," she said crisply. "I have been hired back for the duration of this investigation; however, officially, I still report to the Department of Health. The Home Office wants this to be kept very, very quiet so you are all private infectious disease consultants."

Becker raised an eyebrow.

"Except Captain Becker," Jenny continued smoothly, "who has had his clearance upped and who has been brought in by his military superiors to help control public panic."

"So they're positive that this disease came from the anomaly?" Abby asked.

Jenny gave a wry smile. "They're not positive about anything. However, it's like none of the diseases they know. Doctors have been telling me that it resembles a hantavirus but isn't any of the known varieties and that it causes severe respiratory distress and vomiting."

Abby eyed her pass dubiously. It declared her to be a Doctor Abby Maitland.

"It took James a lot of effort to get those," Jenny told them. "He had to use a lot of leverage and throw around his "Sir James". Don't screw up."

"Yes, boss," Danny said with a smirk.

Jenny narrowed her eyes at him.

* * *

Clarissa was terrified of the men in blue suits. They reminded her of Darth Vader with their raspy mechanical breathing. She expected them to raise their gloved hands and choke off her breathing with the Force. "I want to go home!" she whimpered.

One of the men knelt down next to her. She could hear his voice coming out of the suit, slightly distorted and raspy. "I know, sweetheart," he said. "But you need to be here for a while. We're doctors."

"You're not doctors," she accused. She knew what doctors looked like. They looked like the friendly Dr Chan that her mother visited or the grumpy guy with the walking stick who was on TV. They didn't look like Darth Vader. Clarissa coughed into her hand. "Please?" she tried. "Let me go home?"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," the man said.

Clarissa wasn't sure but she thought she could detect a note of sadness in the man's voice. She coughed again. Was she getting the flu? She had caught it last year and had spent the whole week tucked up in bed with lemon and honey drinks. It had been a miserable week but at least she had SpongeBob for company on TV. "Where's mummy? Where's daddy?" she asked, hiccupping as a tear rolled down her cheek.

The man hesitated. "Daddy isn't here," he said finally.

Clarissa wasn't to be deterred. "Where's mummy then?" she half-shouted. "I want my mummy!"

The man shook his head. It looked very funny when he did it while he was in a giant blue suit. "I'm sorry," he said, standing up. He then turned to one of the other blue-suited men next to him. "Prepare an IV and hook her up. We need to hit this bastard with all conventional therapies."

Clarissa couldn't understand what he was talking about. One minute, she was at home in bed curled up with Teddy who was a stuffed horse that daddy had got for her a few years ago, and the next minute she was here in this strange place. More tears trickled down her face as she sat down on the ground.

* * *

_"Unconfirmed reports have come in that the entire city of Nottingham has been quarantined. The Department of Health is being tight-lipped about the entire issue, but it appears that the city centre is now off-limits to everybody except medical personnel in hazmat gear. It is still unclear what the extent of the issue is, or indeed if it is a chemical or biological attack, but we'll be bringing you updates as we have them."_

Abby shivered and switched the radio off.

"It's horrible," Connor said quietly as he laid a hand on hers.

She grasped it gratefully. "Yeah, it is. It kind of makes you feel guilty, doesn't it?"

Connor nodded. "What with the ARC in lockdown and everything. We're on filtered air, aren't we?"

"Not even a single microbe from the outside can get in," Abby said. She had read the ARC manuals back when they first ended up in this place. Apparently, part of the building could be completely sealed off and self-contained if there was a nuclear, biological or chemical attack.

"We're supposed to be liaising with other experts in half an hour," Connor said finally. "They hooked it all up via the Internet so as to not risk breaking quarantine."

"I suppose we should go over, then," Abby said. She fiddled with her badge. It came complete with a little white patch that was supposed to turn black if she was exposed to too much radiation. "Come on, Dr Connor."

Connor snorted.

* * *

Abby took a deep breath before she entered the meeting room. Strangely, it felt like it was her first day at work all over again. Except, now, it wasn't just her job at stake; it was the lives of millions of British people. She gave a weak smile to one of the other people and was relieved when they nodded back. She found a chair and sat down. Connor sat down beside her and they both swivelled their chairs around to face the whiteboard at the front of the room when Jenny came in.

"Good afternoon," Jenny said crisply. "For those of you who don't know me, I'm from the Home Office. You have been called in because you're all experts in your respective fields. Most of you are infectious disease experts; however, several of those around the table with you today have formulated the contingency plans for such a situation." She leaned down and pressed a button on the computer. "I have with us today, experts from other Level Four labs around the world." Immediately, the overhead screen split into six sections and five worried faces could be seen.

Abby could vaguely remember from films she had seen that Level Four labs dealt with extremely virulent pathogens.

"You will each be handed all currently known information on the disease dubbed Johnson's disease. Sam Johnson was the first man that we know of to die from this disease," Jenny said, clicking on the screen. The blank spot on the overhead screen was filled with the face of Johnson.

Abby swallowed.

"Those are from the photos taken by our pathologists," Jenny said sharply. "The information is contained within the files being handed around now. I don't believe I need to remind you that this is all top secret. Anybody found leaking information to the press will be locked up immediately. This is a national security issue and although the PM doesn't want to enact martial law, he will if he has to."

Abby opened the folder that was handed to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Connor blanch at the images inside. He wasn't the only one. All around the table, people were looking horrified.

"All we know at this time is that the virus resembles a hantavirus," Jenny told them. "I've been told that it doesn't resemble any hantavirus that we currently know of. It is also airborne and extremely deadly. Patient Zero, our Mr Johnson here, came into contact with several police officers at just before 3:00 pm. They died a few hours ago. That is frighteningly short period from initial contact to death: less than 48 hours."

One of the doctors put up her hand. "Do we know the incubation period?"

"From the preliminary tests performed on the information sent over to our friends over at the US, the Centres for Disease Control tell us that it is between an hour to four hours, depending on the health of the victim."

Abby felt sick.

"What are we here to do?" the doctor asked.

Jenny smiled tightly. "I was told that you were the experts. We need to track this virus and the possible spread. We need to trace the origins and we need your combined expertise to come up with a way to combat it. We already have doctors studying the virus and their results are being relayed to us immediately."

"We need to evacuate."

Abby turned her head and saw a white-haired man who looked like he was in his sixties. He slapped his hand down on the table.

"That's premature," Jenny said coldly.

"Hogwash," the man snapped. "I came up with your bloody contingency plans and ever since I heard of this virus, I've been going over my plans. Early evacuation is the only way we're going to survive this as a country."

"The Prime Minister and cabinet do not want to alarm the people," Jenny said stiffly. "We have the situation well contained in Nottingham."

The man waved the file around. "And by the time you realise that it isn't contained, it'll be too late. There are riots on the streets of Nottingham. Do you know how many people in those riots will be infected?"

"Then how would you propose that we evacuate them?" Jenny asked, pursing her lips.

"We don't," the man said flatly.

Abby could feel her heart plummet. There was a bad taste in her mouth and she felt like she knew what the man was going to say next. She wasn't disappointed.

"We need to cordon off 50 miles around Nottingham and evacuate the rest of the country."

"That is a practical impossibility. England isn't that small! Do you know the logistical difficulties of evacuating an entire country?" Jenny snapped. "And as the official government representative here, let me tell you that the Prime Minister does not want to write off three hundred thousand people."

"I'm sure he'll feel very happy in a few weeks when we're all dead," the man snapped. He pushed his chair back with a scrape and stalked towards the door. "I will not be part of this meeting. We need to take action now, before it's too late."

Abby watched as he left the room. Frankly, despite his undoubted qualifications, she was glad that he was gone. She hated people like that, people who were willing to sacrifice everything in the name of the common good. The ends never justified the means like that. She was glad that Jenny didn't listen to the man. Obviously, the British government wasn't so far gone that it would sacrifice its citizens.

* * *

Clarissa coughed. She could taste blood. It tasted like the time she accidentally bit the side of her cheek, all metallic and icky. "What's happening?" she asked fearfully. She'd been feeling better for the last hour or so, but now she was feeling worse again. She felt hot all over and sweat kept on trickling into her eyes. Her breathing seemed to be funny as well, she kept on gasping but it didn't seem to help.

The Darth Vader doctors were still around. They kept on sticking needles into her arms. She tried telling them that she'd already had her injections for the year, but they ignored her. Her arms were sore now and she tried to push them away but they'd just strapped her down.

"Mummy," she whimpered but her mother didn't appear. She wanted chicken soup. She even wanted the medicine her mother usually spooned into her mouth whenever she was sick. "I want mummy."

The world was going dark around her. Clarissa tried to take a deep breath, but she choked on the air instead. She wanted to reach up to claw at her throat, to try to get air in somehow but the straps were around her arms too tightly. She turned her head to the side and coughed, tasting vomit. The smell of it made her throw up over the side of the bed.

One of the doctors shoved a metal container next to her and Clarissa spluttered into that. She was confused. She'd always thought that doctors were supposed to be nice and caring but the one nice doctor wasn't here anymore. "I feel sick," she managed to get out as the world spun around and turned black.

* * *

"So, we're fucked, yeah?" Connor summarised as they stepped out of the meeting.

Abby nodded. She hadn't realised before this how helpless experts sounded when they were alone together. She had always imagined meetings like that would involve people who were less panicked and angry. Then again, the current situation was terrifying, even for experts. Every half hour, new reports of deaths came in. The last report had talked about unconfirmed reports of the disease outside of Nottingham.

She shivered. Just the thought of it made her want to crawl into bed and never get out from under the covers. It was a horrifying world they were living in right now. She knew that with every breath of air she took, scores of people out there were also breathing. Except, instead of breathing in the filtered air of the ARC, they were being infected with an unknown pathogen.

"Yeah," she said. "We're fucked."

* * *

Lester was looking more and more tense with each message that was coming in. Abby could see him jump with each successive phone call and from the expression on his face, she knew that none of it was good news. The TV channels were simply recycling the old reports now. Abby could tell from the little red dots on the map in Lester's office that the disease had spread far beyond Nottingham.

"Total media blackout," Jenny had told her tersely when Abby had questioned it. "We can't let the public panic."

"But shouldn't they know the truth? Even if they end up panicking?" Abby asked.

"If they panic now, the disease will spread further," Jenny pointed out.

It made sense to Abby. A sick sort of sense, but sense nonetheless. What they were doing felt wrong, despite the fact that it was logical. She narrowed her eyes as she saw Lester reach into his desk drawer. He had an expression of resignation on his face as he placed yet another dot on the board.

Abby breathed in sharply. The dot was on the outskirts of London. That meant they had a confirmed case in London.

* * *

Jessica Daley pushed back her long brown hair and faced the camera. "We're outside 10 Downing Street, where reporters are demanding that the government gives us news about the pandemic. The government has declared a total media blackout on the issue and the Prime Minister is urging the public to remain calm. Government officials say that there is nothing to fear and that people should return to their houses. However, sources from within the government tell us that they have no way of controlling this unknown pathogen."

She paused as the camera turned to pan over the crowd. "As you can see, the crowds of people here are terrified and demanding answers. What is this disease that has struck England? What is the government doing about it? And most importantly, is there a cure?" She looked seriously into the camera for five seconds before turning away.

"Good," Bill told her as he started packing away the camera. "Heartfelt."

Jessica surveyed the scene around her grimly. "Damn well should be," she muttered. "They're not the only ones terrified."

"Come on," Bill told her, "it's probably nothing. Remember how overblown the whole swine flu thing was? And SARS before that?"

"My sources tell me that over half of Nottingham is infected," she retorted.

"Your sources are feeding you shit," Bill said with a laugh.

"I hope so," Jessica said quietly. "I bloody well hope so."

Bill punched her on the arm. "You're just being paranoid," he said reassuringly. "It's not the end of the world, I promise."

As Jessica looked around at the wide-eyed terrified people, she wasn't so sure. An unknown disease appearing virtually out of nowhere, thousands of people rumoured to be dead, tens of thousands rumoured to be infected, it certainly seemed like a pretty good doomsday scenario. "Do you know that if one of the people here is infected," she said slowly, "then we're probably all infected by now."

Bill rolled his eyes. "Stop it."

Jessica could feel a tickle at the back of her throat. Taking a deep breath, she stopped herself from coughing. It was just a cold or a cough or something ordinary. It had to be.

* * *

Jenny couldn't help staring at Lester. He looked like he had aged ten years. There were dark circles underneath his eyes and was that mustard on his shirt? His suit was rumpled and there was something distinctly unwashed about his demeanour. "You asked for me to come?" she said hesitantly.

Lester nodded abruptly. He sat down and pulled open one of his desk drawers. Taking out a file, he laid it on the table in front of him. "This is Protocol 92," he said quietly.

Jenny stared. "Protocol 92?" she repeated weakly.

His gaze was unwavering. "I trust you know what this means."

"But, Protocol 92 is the last option," she protested. "It's not supposed to be on the table yet. We're supposed to be trying other things."

"We have results coming in from Level 4 labs all around the world. They're all the same. This thing is unstoppable," Lester said, his voice slow and steady. It was as though he was reciting something from memory. There was absolutely no emotion to his voice, no sense of the gravity of what he was saying. "We just have to wait for our own labs to confirm it but once they do, Protocol 92 will be enacted."

"But..." she said.

Lester reached down and pulled out another file. "Read it for yourself," he told her. "And then tell me you disagree with this decision."

With trembling fingers, Jenny took the file from him.

* * *

_"Public health officials are doing all they can to stop the spread of the disease. They say that they have the situation well under hand and are working day and night to find a cute. Meanwhile, the residents of England are fearful and many have flooded to the airports only to find that all flights have been cancelled. The government has instigated a country-wide quarantine and anybody found to be leaving the country will be detained."_

Abby turned down the volume of the telly. "We're evacuating?" she repeated. "I thought... because of the quarantine?"

"The government has decided that those who have definitely not been exposed to the virus are to be evacuated. Currently, that means only a few military bases, some of the government and us. The ARC has been running on its own internal filtering system since the epidemic began," Jenny explained, a strange look in her eyes.

"What about the rest of the population?" Abby asked.

"Doctors will still be looking for a cure," Jenny said, not looking at her.

Abby frowned. There was something off about what Jenny was saying. Why wasn't Jenny looking at her? "When's the evacuation?"

"A time hasn't been set yet, but within 24 hours."

Abby watched as Jenny walked off briskly. Twenty four hours? That was a strange deadline to set for an evacuation. There was something more going on and Abby was determined to find out what it was. She already knew that the media wasn't getting fed the correct information and now it seems neither was she.

* * *

Joshua peered at the screen. "It's baffling," he said in admiration. His words were greeted with silence. Miffed, he looked away from the screen and at the glares his colleagues were directing towards him.

"It's horrifying," Nancy bit out, her hands over her hips. "It's terrible what's happening to those people."

Joshua resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course, he knew that. He'd been just as glued to the TV screen as they all had over the last few days, but that wasn't the point. They were working for England's premier infectious disease facility and they had the actual virus here. "It's structured like a hantavirus," he said slowly as he turned back to the screen, "but its incubation period is much, much shorter. Instead of two to four weeks, we have something like an incubation period of two to four hours!"

Nancy leaned over his shoulder.

"I suppose it's a good thing though," Joshua added thoughtfully. Nancy hit him and he winced, rubbing his shoulder. "A shorter incubation period means that the spread is more contained."

Nancy ignored him. She frowned as she scrutinised the screen. "The edges look too fuzzy for a hantavirus," she commented.

"I was thinking that," Joshua agreed. "I believe we're looking at a whole new virus. It may look like a hantavirus, have some of the symptoms of viral hemorrhagic fever, but it is a whole new virus. I think this is a man-made virus."

"That's impossible," Nancy protested as the other people around them made equally dissenting noises. "We just don't have the technology for it. We can't just make something like this. It's too virulent. It's too deadly. There have been no reports of survivors."

Joshua tapped the screen. "You tell me, Nancy. Does this look like it occurs in nature to you?"

Her silence was enough for him.

* * *

"One hundred per cent mortality rate," Joshua said quietly, his face muffled slightly by the Level Four protocols he had to go through. "This little baby is a _killer_!" He peered through the microscope at the virus.

He had been asked to perform every test again that they had already performed on the virus. The government wanted to make sure that they hadn't missed anything before they started with the next stage of their protocols. Joshua shook his head slightly as he began to carefully put away the slides into their respective containers. He didn't approve of the government's actions, but they made logical sense. A sick kind of logic though.

Joshua disconnected himself from the air supply and walked towards the pressure-sealed door. It opened with a hiss and he stepped through. Immediately, he lifted his arms as he was sprayed from all around. Level Four protocols were rather tedious; Joshua was just glad that it was easier to get out rather than get in. It took him several minutes every day to check his suit for possible minute tears.

As he stripped and got into the disinfecting shower, Joshua leaned against the wall. He wished that he had found something different. If he had, then maybe he wouldn't have to report to the government that Protocol 92 needed to go ahead. He scrubbed himself down and then stepped out of the shower. Shivering slightly, Joshua quickly pulled on his clothes.

The pretty blonde doctor – Joshua was almost sure her name was Anna or Abby or something like that – stopped him as he left the bathroom. "Did you find anything different?"

Joshua shook his head. "It's the same. We don't know what it is and none of our conventional, or even our unconventional, therapies are having any effect," he said sadly. "It's one motherfucking powerful virus."

She bit her lip. "So what do we do now?"

Joshua looked at his watch. "I'm going to brief the committee. Wish me luck." He shook his head. "I really don't want to do this. Protocol 92 scares me."

There was a brief look of puzzlement on her face before it cleared. "It scares me too," she admitted.

He let out a mental sigh of relief as he watched her walk away. For a second there, he thought he had made a grievous error of judgement. Protocol 92 was only known by a select few. Joshua yawned. He would have never made the mistake if he had been fully awake. There was really only so much coffee could do to help him at this point. He needed proper rest but he wasn't going to get this until the entire crisis was over.

* * *

"What is Protocol 92?" Abby asked, her voice steady. She didn't like the look on Lester's face, the fear and the resignation. Throughout this entire crisis, Lester had been like a rock. He had been their rock. When everybody else around him had trembled under the weight of what they might have been able to prevent, Lester had remained calm and normal.

Lester didn't reply. He stared out of the window, his fingers toying with a pencil. He turned it over and over again in his fingers until Abby wanted to break it and throw it on the ground.

"Lester," she said. "Lester! Look at me. What is Protocol 92?"

Lester turned around slowly and looked at her. She was horrified to see how drawn he looked. It seemed as though he had waged a long, hard battle against something, and she supposed that in a way, he had. "Protocol 92 is the final protocol."

That didn't sound good. The fact he hadn't even bothered to try to dodge her question worried her. Abby was beginning to get a feeling deep inside her gut of what Protocol 92 could stand for. "Tell me," she said urgently. "What is it?"

Reaching over, Lester fiddled with the combination lock on his wall safe. It opened with a click and he reached inside and pulled out a folder. It was stamped TOP SECRET and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. "It's in there," he said wearily, handing it to her.

Abby took the folder. It wasn't like Lester to break security protocol like this. She hesitated before tucking it into a plain brown folder. "Thanks," she said softly as she left the room. The folder felt heavy in her fingers, even though it seemed to only contain a few pieces of paper. They had been told to evacuate the ARC a few hours earlier, a decision that had come as a shock to most of them.

Publicly, the evacuation didn't exist. Publicly, the hospitals were working as hard as they could on a cure for the disease that was spreading like wildfire throughout the population. Normally with diseases, there would be a certain amount of the population with immunity. With this disease, it seemed to kill 100% of those it infected. The hazmat teams who had gone in to sweep the infected areas found no survivors.

Privately, however, they were evacuating. Privately, she could tell from the expressions on the doctor's faces that they had given up. They had managed to keep it contained to Britain so far, which was fortunate.

Abby got to her office and shut the door behind her. Her fingers trembled as she opened the folder.

She only got three lines in before she realised that they were in deeper shit than she could have ever imagined.

* * *

"Protocol 92," Abby said grimly as she tossed it onto the table. "I suppose we could call it the Final Protocol." She looked around the table and could see the puzzled expressions on the faces of Danny, Connor, Becker and Sarah. Jenny's face, however, was unreadable.

"I guess they didn't manage to get up to 100 then," Connor joked. "It would have been a nice round number."

Jenny pushed her chair back and walked over to where Abby was standing. "Where did you get that folder?" she asked, her voice tight. "You don't have the clearance."

Abby's mouth fell open. "You knew about this?" she burst out. "You _knew_ about this?"

Jenny's jaw was set in a hard line. She brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face as she faced Abby. "Yes," she said crisply. "I knew about this."

"You knew about what?" Danny asked, narrowing his eyes. He reached for the folder, but Jenny picked it up.

"None of you have clearance for this," Jenny told them. "I suggest that everybody gets back to preparing for the evacuation."

Abby didn't move. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Jenny. "I can't believe you knew about this. I thought you were a better person than this. You were the one who didn't want the people of Nottingham condemned to die. How could you condone something like that?" She jabbed the folder in Jenny's arms.

"Because," Jenny said icily, "you don't know the full extent of the Johnson's Disease. Nobody does. It's my job to keep the lid shut tightly on this. Protocol 92 is the only option."

"A direct nuclear strike on British soil is never the option," Abby spat. "It should never be an option. I can't believe our government sanctioned this. How many other protocols are there? What else should we know about?"

Jenny thinned her lips. "Abby, you've been working for the ARC for over three years now. You're working for a top-secret British government establishment. The ARC certainly doesn't go around telling the public about its various goings-on. Why? Because the public doesn't need to know and it would cause mass rioting."

"I can't believe you're trying to justify this!" Abby exclaimed.

For a second, Abby thought she could see the mask that Jenny was wearing slip slightly. For that brief second, she could see the tired, worn woman underneath, but then the next second, the mask was back in place and Jenny was the crisp professional again. "It's necessary," Jenny said softly. "We can't allow this plague to spread to the rest of the world." She clutched the folder tightly to her chest as she walked off, her heels making a clicking sound.

Abby sat down abruptly. She stared down at the table.

"Abby?"

She looked up to see the worried eyes of everybody else around the table.

"Is that true?" Sarah asked. "Are they going for a ... a nuclear strike?"

Abby nodded. "Protocol 92," she said bitterly.

* * *

Jenny spun around when Abby touched her on the shoulder. "What do you want?" she asked. Abby was surprised at how tired she sounded.

"How can you think that this is the answer?"

Jenny looked at her. Now that Abby was closer, she could see Jenny's red-rimmed eyes and the paleness of her skin. "Do you think we haven't considered the other options?" she said softly. "This was the hardest decision I've ever had to make, but in the end, I voted for Protocol 92."

"Who else voted for it?" Abby burst out. She wanted to know who else had taken it upon themselves to condemn the rest of the British people, the ones who were still alive anyway. "Who else made this _hard_ decision?"

Jenny closed her eyes, a pained expression on her face. "It wasn't an easy decision," she said. "It was the right decision though. Can't you see that?"

"No," Abby said simply. "It's never the right decision."

"I have to wonder if you'd think that way in my place," Jenny told her wearily. "It's different when you have the decision-making power. Do you want to be the person who doomed the human race? I've talked to doctors from Level Four organisations all across the world. They all agree that we have no idea how to even begin to manufacture any sort of cure or palliative."

"You do realise that this nuclear strike will affect our neighbouring countries, right?" Abby pointed out, tried a different tack.

"The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to support Protocol 92. Even France. They know that it's a decision made in the best interests of the world," Jenny said. With that, she spun on her heel and walked away.

Abby watched, her heart heavy.

* * *

"There's an anomaly," Connor said quietly. He pointed at the small screen.

Abby bit the side of her cheek. She knew what he meant by the sentence. There was an anomaly and they could escape through it. That's what he meant, but neither of them wanted to say it out loud. They couldn't just leave all this behind. Even though through the anomaly, there was another time waiting for them, it felt like they would be leaving everything they knew behind. "Lester's not going to let us go," she said. "And Becker's with Jenny."

"I know," Connor muttered.

"This is running away," Abby said.

"I know," Connor repeated, sounding resigned.

"We can't just... we can't just leave this," Abby said, waving her hands around to encompass the entire world. "We need to stay and fight!"

"I know."

Abby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Let's go," she said quickly. "Before we change our minds."

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to convince the rest of the team. Abby had expected more resistance, especially from Danny, but when Connor had put the idea to them, they had all agreed surprisingly quickly.

It felt like treason when they crept along the corridors of the ARC. Actually, Abby thought, it was treason. She shook her head, not wanting to think about it. Martial law had been enacted. Thus, what they were doing was punishable by life imprisonment. Her nails bit into her palms as she tried to calm herself down. "Shh," she said, bringing a finger to her lip. She winced as she heard the squeak of Sarah's shoes behind her.

"It's across the road," Connor whispered. "We're going to have to get past the guards."

Abby inhaled deeply. That was going to be the hard bit. The ARC was sealed off from the outside world. It had been so since the pandemic began. The guards were well trained not to let anybody in or out and as such, everybody inside was safe from the disease outside.

"Masks," Connor said softly as he grabbed a couple from a room they were passing. "We want to be safe outside."

As safe as possible anyway, Abby thought morosely.

* * *

As Abby looked around, she could see what remained of their ARC team. She bit her lip as she thought of Becker, Lester and all the other ARC staff who had been left behind. Now they were alone, cut off from civilisation and it was likely that back through the locked anomaly, Jenny was ordering Protocol 92 to be enacted. And they were the lucky ones, she thought grimly. They had an anomaly to escape through. The rest of the British population didn't have that option.

"What if we've brought the disease through with us?" Connor said, putting a voice to all of their fears.

"We haven't," Abby said, keeping her voice steady. She looked around at the environment and at the scant supplies they had managed to grab en route. "We're safe now and we can live here. It's habitable." As far as she could see, there were trees and what seemed like a creek running off into the distance. It looked like quite a nice place, just not somewhere she would want to spend the rest of her life.

She could see Danny wrinkle his nose. "It'll just be like camping," he offered, looking doubtful. "Except, without the tents."

"Yes," Abby said encouragingly. She laid a hand on Sarah's shoulder. "We'll be fine. We can get through this."

"I wonder what's happening back there," Sarah said quietly, gesturing to the locked anomaly behind them. "I wonder what Jenny's doing?"

"She made her choice," Abby said, her voice coming out harsher than she intended. "She wanted to stay, to ensure that the virus didn't get out of Britain."

Danny quirked an eyebrow at her. "So she didn't want to run away?"

Abby didn't want to think about that. They had no other _choice_. They couldn't have stayed there. They _couldn't_.

Connor reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly. "We're here now," she said. "Unless, anybody wants to go back?"

Nobody answered.

_-fin_


End file.
